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Donald Trump has called for a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States’.

The comments mark a dramatic escalation of his rhetoric on Islam and is an idea widely condemned by his rival Republican presidential candidates and others in the party.

The Republican frontrunner’s proposed ban would apply to immigrants and visitors alike, a sweeping prohibition affecting all adherents of a religion practised by more than a billion people worldwide. He said in a statement such a ban should stand ‘until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on’.

‘Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,’ he said.

Mr Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign has been marked by a pattern of inflammatory statements and he kicked off his campaign with a speech in which he said some Mexican immigrants are rapists and criminals.

Donald Trump made his comments at a Pearl Harbor Day rally (Picture: Reuters)

He recently drew criticism for retweeting an image of inaccurate statistics that vastly overrepresented the number of whites killed by blacks.

But so far those and other errors of fact have not diminished his popularity among many Republican voters.

At an evening rally in South Carolina, Mr Trump supporters cheered and shouted in support as he read his statement and warned that without drastic action, ‘it’s going to get worse and worse, you’re going to have more World Trade Centers’.

Mr Trump’s plan also drew criticism from the heads of the Republican Party in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the first three states to vote in next year’s presidential primaries.

‘It is un-Republican. It is unconstitutional. And it is un-American,’ said Jennifer Horn, chairwoman of the Republican Party of New Hampshire.

Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said Mr Trump’s proposed ban would apply to ‘everybody’, including Muslims seeking immigration visas as well as tourists seeking to enter the country.